Proton

[Sulland]

Is it still only 5 cars produced of the Proton ?
And one of them destroyed, so 4 alive cars.

Will they or have they made new cars for their A-P Campaign ?

[ChrisB]

Chris lives in Monaco. Hmm, good, I knew he was living in UK and wondered. Anyway he would be a good addition to IRC and in past comments he said he liked IRC.

To Proton cars, as far as I am aware no new cars finished but in the process of building. They will have to anyway. Because of the 5 cars we know, one is a very old test car (and I thought sold to Ireland, but never saw it since Niall McShae used it in WRC Ireland last year) and 2 are sold, one to an Italian team, the other to Tom Cave. Then the one destroyed in Scottland. Leaves the team currently with only 1 car?!

[Sulland]

Ok, so this list is not updated then: http://www.s2000rally.com/car-list.php? ... rch=Search

If you know for a fact that cars are sold Chris, pls inform the people behind the site so they can update, or post it here, and I can !

[ChrisB]

Sulland, are you involved with that site? If so, I owe the guy running this site a reply since ages, so please tell him it is coming, just things got totally out of hand here. Besides I have a few things where our info is not matching, so never mind whose mistakes they are, worth putting heads together....

The problem with my latest info, Tom Cave has bought one of their cars for his program, but I don't know yet which one.

KPX the same, apparently sold to Ireland, but I never found proof of that, as the car was never seen since Niall McShae drove it in Ireland and Niall surely is not the buyer.

[ChrisB]

According to news from Belgium, Francois Duval refused an offer from Proton for an IRC programme plus events in APRC. He was offerred 125,000 Euros but declined because he did not want to do the events in Asia. I am disappointed that neither party would budge on that because I would have liked to have seen Francois in IRC but I am pleased that Proton are looking for a good driver and are willing to pay him.

So who now? Atko? He would be ideally placed to also do some events in Asia.

Gardemeister would be a safe pair of hands too, although I doubt he could match the top IRC guys on either surface.

Some notes to this post. It seems always dificult to find the true reality. On usually reliable, German http://www.motorsport-total.com there is a report of Duval ending his career because he finds it unrealistic to find a works drive in WRC. In there they report, in contrast to what Ron found, that Duval actually wanted to do Asia-Pacific rounds but the seat was snapped up by Chris Atkinson instead.

I personally am not sure what to think here. On one side you could jokingly say what difference does it make if he is a spectator full stop or if he crashes at the start of SS1 and then turns a spectator. On the other hand I wonder what happened with all his weird, early crashes. Ypres 1st corner SS1 was a joke, San Remo his performance was a joke, was it Condroz he crashed the Lancer WRC early, in the recent Boucles de Spa historic he crashed the Fiat 124. Was it his navigator injuring Japan 08 crash that throw him out? But then he was still 6th in the Rally GB thereafter. True Duval has a rough style with lots of LFB, but I would also say at Citroen he was in the wrong car. In 2005 Märtin would have been better off at Citroen and Duval better at Peugeot. And still Duval won Australia that year and Duval gave Loeb a run for his money on Rallye Deutschland 07 with an outdated car. I would find it a huge shame if this young talent ended his career, though he is in the same boat as Galli, Atko and several others (P-G, Aava, Pons, Carlsson, the list of drivers who would be more deserving of these M2 drives is endless).

From a Proton point of view I do believe however Atko is the better choice. Great Proton seems ready to pay a high profile driver. But Proton is still a small team/manufacturer, they need a driver who can do development, not one who destroys the cars faster than they can build them. That Atko also lives in Europe makes it weird for me that Proton takes him for Asia-Pacific without a mention of IRC. But Atko has superb knowledge of Asia-Pacific, being a former Suzuki S1600 works driver in that series.

Gardemeister indeed a good mention. Like you I doubt he is on the pace of the IRC front runners, but I think he is at least as quick as Alister, he is a superb alrounder, and most likely a better car developer than all of Proton's other options Alister, Duval, Atko.

[RonSkoda]

Proton's APRC programme starts earlier than their planned IRC programme (from Sardinia onwards) so I guess they needed to get drivers sorted for that first - and as it is a different series they will put out completely separate press releases for that.

Hopefully they are trying to finalise a programme for Atko for IRC too (or any other good driver!)

[PLuto]

Some notes to this post. It seems always dificult to find the true reality. On usually reliable, German http://www.motorsport-total.com there is a report of Duval ending his career because he finds it unrealistic to find a works drive in WRC. In there they report, in contrast to what Ron found, that Duval actually wanted to do Asia-Pacific rounds but the seat was snapped up by Chris Atkinson instead.

I can confirm Ron's version. Duval was priority for Proton team, he has received offer to do 13 APRC and IRC events. I was talking to Duval's manager, he confirmed that Duval refused the contract and wants to stop with rallying.

[RonSkoda]

According to this article: http://www.maxrally.com/news/entry/ande ... wrc_talks/

... PG Andersson is in talks with Proton for "some events" I presume this would be IRC. This would be excellent news, PG's times in the Fabia in sWRC have been stunning - not only compared to the other sWRC crews but to the main WRC drivers too!

[ChrisB]

Thanks Pluto for the correction/confirmation. Normally this is the more reliably German source, but I am with you on this one now. Strange though that Duval decided on ending his career when he still has good offers, but somehow that fits Duval.

PG would be a good option or Proton. But more for the gravel rounds. Don't know if he is any good on asphalt. It is actually rubbing it in for Suzuki, in their rotten WRC program, it was certainly not the drivers to blame, because both their drivers were ace! It also shows once again how competitive the IRC is. In 3 events we have 1 win for PG and 2 for Pons, while PG's second start was marred with technical problems. Pons I myself believe is underrated, had he less bad luck with accidents and incidents in 2006, I am sure he would be where Sordo is now and do as good a job. Beyond PG and Pons, there is no-one really in SWRC. Prokop might still be good. But see last round in Jordan until technical problems Sousa was 2nd behind Pons! Sousa had several IRC starts and was not top10 material! In Jordan 2nd was Al Rajhi in the Kronos 207, who got no points, 3rd a guy with 10min penalties from retirements, 4th PG with 20min penalties from a retirement....

[ChrisB]

Correction, in Acores last year Sousa actually was in the top10, just behind Rautenbach....

[RonSkoda]

Regarding Sousa, he should be on Azores and Madeira again this year with his Fiesta. I've no doubt he'll show a lot better in that car than the Punto but I somewhat doubt he'll be near the front.

And regarding Proton, Stephane Prevot has said he'll be doing 6 IRC Rallies with Atkinson in the Proton! Great news, I wonder whether Proton are skipping a couple of rounds or if they clash with APRC as there are 8 left from Sardinia onwards.

[ChrisB]

Doubt Proton would do Cyprus, expensive and in marketing pointless. Sousa drove the winning car in Madeira. Or (question for ML) if you are an Abarth customer you buy the Abarth luck as part of the package?

[Sulland]

The car for Atko is ready: http://www.s2000rally.com/car-detail.php?car=284

Lets hope they will make a good pair !

[RonSkoda]

The car for Atko is ready: http://www.s2000rally.com/car-detail.php?car=284

Lets hope they will make a good pair !

I'm sure they will. I expect Atko to be faster than Alister but both are decent peddlers. Atko is up there with the best "non-Loeb" drivers from WRC so it will be interesting to see what he can do. If they have made some progress on the car I would expect some IRC podiums for him this year.

[RonSkoda]

Alister was very pleased with the improvements to the Proton during the APRC opener: http://irc.rallye-info.com/article.asp?sid=11&stid=8627

Althought there is still no official confirmation of the Proton IRC campaign, it seems virtually certain that McRae and Atkinson will do 6 events in IRC and 7 in APRC (already confirmed) As Pluto told us above, Duval was offerred 13 events in total and there are 7 in APRC - and Stephane Prevot confirmed separately that he & Atkinson will do 6 IRC events.

[Sulland]

The Proton did well on asphalt in ireland a few years ago, did it not ?

[Pacheco]

Let´s see what Proton will be capable to do at Azores.
Alister has some knowledge about the rallye. He drove three times but the stages are very different today.

[RonSkoda]

The drivers seem to be pleased with the car on asphalt, but I would tend to expect better results from them on gravel, maybe strong points on Azores with McRae and Atkinson behind the wheel?

[Sulland]

Looking at the SD film, the Protons looked to be set a little too low, since all 3 were bottoming in the asphalt edge when cutting corners, and by doing that lost direction for a while. No other cars did that.


There are a lot of corners like that one in Ypres !!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGS8O1373G0

[RonSkoda]

They were just talking about the Proton's ride height on Rally Radio and they say that there is an issue when they run the car too high (on gravel) where the handling becomes dreadful, so they run it low and then it causes reliability problems because the sumpguard and running gear is vulnerable.